“Lucas?” queried the Young Master.
“Lucas Mucus,” said John, “of Membrane, Mucus, Willoby, Turncoat and Gladbetook. Covent Garden,” he tapped his nose, “one of the big five, need I say more?”
“Oh, that Lucas…”
“Which other? Surely you know him?”
“Slightly,” said Young Master Robert. “You know him well then?”
“Like a brother. We did visual design, marketing management, advanced concept realization, audio and televisual of course “Oh, of course.” Robert’s head nodded foolishly.
“Consumer response-objectivity and mass-media inter-inductional transmogrification at the Slade.” Omally studied the Young Master’s face for signs that he had been rumbled.
“Go on?” said the buffoon, very much impressed.
John did so, with growing confidence. “Surely I see the hand of Lucas at work here?” he said, gesturing grandiloquently.
“No, no, this is all my own work.”
“Brilliant,” said John, “I am very impressed. So how did you get wind of it then, a bit of industrial espionage, eh?” He pulled at his lower eyelid in a lewd manner.
“Sorry?” said Young Master Robert. “I don’t think I follow you.”
Omally nudged the hoodlum confidentially in the rib area. “Come on,” said he, “you’re not telling me this is a coincidence?”
“Coincidence? What are you talking about?” John studied his toecaps. Without the Young Master’s prompting, work in the Swan had ceased and the menials were standing about like run-down clockwork automatons. So far so good, thought Omally. “Out with it,” demanded the Young Master. “What are you talking about?”
Omally beckoned conspiratorially and put his arm about the brat’s rounded shoulder. “All this,” said he, “you sly dog, you got wind, eh?” He tapped his nose with his free hand.
“Got wind?”
“Certainly, got wind that the brewery’s rivals were about to convert all their pubs into theme bars of a similar ilk.”
“They what?” Young Master Robert toppled backwards from his stool. Omally considered stopping him, but the thought passed on almost as soon as it had been born. He helped the boy up from the floor.
“Now don’t come the innocent,” he said. “Lucas told me that his company were engaged in converting the Four Horsemen, the North Star, the Jolly Alchemist, the Hands of Orloff, the Shrunken Head, the …”
“I… stop! Wait!” Young Master Robert flapped his hands at the menials who were doing nothing anyway. “All the other pubs?” he asked Omally. “All of them?”
“Every other local,” said that man, crossing his heart and hoping not to die in the process.
“Shit,” said Young Master Robert. “Oh shit, shit, shit!”
“Oh no,” said Omally, striking his forehead, “now I see it all.”
“You do? You do?”
“Of course, what a fool I am!”
“You are?”
“I am,” said Omally, who was anything but. “They’ve stolen the idea from you, of course, it all makes sense now. One of them was in here a few nights back. Neville must have let the cat out of the bag.”
“You bastard.” The boy turned upon the part-time barman, who stood alone in silent prayer.
“Pardon?” said Neville. “I what?”
“No, no,” said John, “it’s not his fault, he was only blowing the brewery’s trumpet. You never told him it was a secret. Professional pride got the better of him. That man worships you.”
Robert looked from Omally to the part-time barman and back again. For one terrible moment John thought the game was up. “He does what?”
“Not a man to show his feelings,” said John hurriedly. “There’s a way out of this though, I’m sure there is.”
“Think, man, think.”
Omally sought inspiration amongst the bumblies upon the Swan’s nicotined ceiling. “I have a plan,” said he, suddenly. “It is an old trick but it might just work.”
“Tell me… tell me.”
Half an hour later Neville stood alone in the Flying Swan, it was just as it had ever been, same threadbare carpet, same tables, same chairs, same dartboard, same everything.
Omally stood in the doorway waving goodbye. “Don’t mention it,” he called, “any time.” The door swung shut upon the sound of Young Master Robert’s departing BMW.
“How?” said the part-time barman. “How did you do it?”
Omally turned to his esteemed employer, the look upon Neville’s face was one John would forever cherish. “Psychology, ” said the great man of Eire, “and a small white lie or two.”
“Have a drink,” said Neville, making for the whisky optic, “have two, have three if you like.”
“Not when I’m working, sir,” said John in a voice of mock sincerity.
Neville drew off a couple of large stiff ones. “Sit down and tell me,” he said. “Every last little bit.”
“There’s not much to it,” said John sipping Scotch. “I simply told him that to my knowledge the rival brewery were converting all their pubs into Olympic theme bars and that to really clean up, with the big influx of Yanks, the best thing to do was to retain the Swan’s ‘Olde Worlde’ atmosphere. An island of unspoilt old England in a sea of pseudo-Americana was the phrase I used. Quite a nice one I thought. Seemed to do the trick rather well.”
“You are a genius,” said Neville. “But what when he finds out that it’s all lies, when the other pubs don’t do the conversions?”
“I took the liberty of telling him that the other pubs were not going to be converted until the day before the games begin, so when he does find out it will be too late anyway.”
Neville looked thoughtful. “But when he does find out…” His voiced trailed off.
“When he does find out then I will tell him that it is yet more industrial espionage. That the rival breweries have all followed his lead. But of course it will be too late for them because our sign will already be up.”
“Our sign, what sign?”
Omally put on a brave face. “The new pub sign,” he said in a whisper.
“What?” roared Neville. “Are we still to be the Pentathlon Bar?”
“No, no.” John shook his head. “In fact I got away with only a letter or twos’ change.”
“All right, let’s have it.”
“Well,” said Omally, flinching from the part-time barman, “the new sign will say: YE FLYING SWAN INN, OLDEST AND MOST AUTHENTIC PUB IN BRENTFORD, WELCOMES ITS AMERICAN COUSINS.”
“Ye Flying Swan Inn,” said Neville. “Ye Gods!”
28
At around four that afternoon, Omally was to be found cycling unsteadily down Cagliostro Crescent. He and Neville had enjoyed several “afters” of the triple persuasion to celebrate John’s triumph in saving the Swan from a fate which, if not actually worse than death itself, amounted to very much the same thing. Neville had waxed sentimental, as was often his way when in his cups, and been effusive in his praises.
“You have performed a service to the Flying Swan,” he told the grinning Irishman, “of such magnitude that any financial reward would be pitifully inadequate as an expression of its worth, and thus to offer it would be tardy and churlish. Instead I give you my sincerest thanks, offer you my deepest respect and promise you my continued good fellowship. Such things you will agree are beyond price.”
John had no reply to make, although several sprang immediately to mind, but he was pleased beyond measure that Neville was his old self again. He had accepted a bottle of Scotch from the barman’s private stock and the evening off as tangible appreciation for his noble deed.
Omally turned right into Moby Dick Terrace and brought Marchant to a sudden, unexpected and wheel-shuddering halt. Parked outside his house was a long black car of advanced design and uncertain extraction. “The Garda,” said John, hastily steering Marchant up the kerb and into an alleyway. Parking up, he dismounted and peered around the corner to see just what was what. A figure issued from his front doorway. It was not a policeman, as he had feared, but a dwarf in chauffeur’s livery. The creature hobbled around to the driver’s door and entered the vehicle which at once drew away, slowly and soundlessly. John cowered back as it passed him by and strained to get a further glimpse of the car’s occupants, but the windows were blacked out and it was impossible.